


The Russian's Lullaby

by Nitrobot



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M, Nightmares, Sharing a Bed, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 13:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4627263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitrobot/pseuds/Nitrobot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>... and the German girl's semi-dunken confessions.<br/>Illya has nightmares and Gaby can't sleep. She comes up with a solution for both of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Russian's Lullaby

**Author's Note:**

> The people asked for more Gallya, and so I deliver. For some reason I feel like Illya might be prone to night terrors (most likely due to insecurity, a fear that he'll never rise above his parents' mistakes, sad stuff like that), since sleep is always when someone is the most vulnerable.  
> ... or maybe I just have too many Russian OCs and a certain one of them keeps creeping in every time I write Illya. Yeah, that's probably it. I really don't know if I'm getting their characterisations right or not, so please call me out if I've messed it all up.

Gaby pretended not to hear the first fit of night terrors, too busy drowning in her own sea of too much bourbon and too scratchy hotel pillows. Illya knew this because she wasn't very good at pretending, but she was only an afterthought with the nightmares still burned into his eyelids. He sucked in breaths as if the room was running dry, exhaling out with shivers despite the warmth in their suite. Sweat was starting to soak his bedclothes, spreading quickly to the sheets. And how long would it be until he heard a quip about "embarrassing stains" the next morning, he wondered, only after his mind returned to him like a bad, half-forgotten memory.

He was half tempted to speak, to assure her somehow that sharing a room with him wasn't a death sentence. Their first night had been painfully, achingly easy; both of them exhausted from tearing the suite apart and causing a nightmare for the following day's housekeeping crew. Lying in bed then his head was full of _her_ , replaying every tilt of her lips and the fox-like glimmer in her eyes when she made him frown. He would cast guilty glances over at her, swaddled in her duvet and the easy comfort of alcohol, before having to look away lest his heart start bleeding. That was before the possibility of losing her became a reality that slapped him harder than she ever could.

There was little worse a man could do than get his fiance killed. With that thought, the nightmares took their cue and came creeping back in again, taking up residence until long away daybreak. 

Illya listened to her stumbling snores and the irregular breaths giving her awakeness away for a while, studying the ceiling out of fear of closing his eyes into an accusing darkness. He could only keep them open for so long though, vainly fighting off the pull of sleep only to be pulled back down again. 

The last thing he heard before his own scream jolting him back awake was the faint whistle of air through her nose, with a distance seeming to span years between them.

He followed the same old routine of calming himself; deep breaths, clear mind, slowly convincing himself that there wasn't anyone nearby that he needed to kill. Only this time, the spectator made herself known. The whites of her eyes were flicked open like headlights, the grille of her mouth clamped closed between shiny-metal lips, her head propped up on a stiff pillow. 

Even with grogginess tugging her eyelids downwards, she still managed to stare right through him; icy skin and damp clothes and all.

"I am sorry to have kept you awake," he said quietly, his own voice sounding unwelcome in the otherwise dead silence. 

Gaby only blinked her headlights at him. "Do you get those often?" She kept her voice low as well, as if assuring him it wasn't a sin to speak. 

He rested against the headboard of the bed, not trusting the pillow to ward off even more terrors. "I have come to expect them," he only half-lied. Expecting something was almost never comforting- a man could know he would die hours in advance and still he would fight till his grave to stay alive. 

"How long have you had them?" Gaby asked, resting those probing spotlights on his face. It It wasn't the question he was expecting, the grimly predictable "What were they about?" that he wasn't sure he could even answer. Even so, Illya could barely bring himself to return her gaze, expecting anger thinly veiled by lethargy or, worse still, concern.

He forced his eyes open and aside, staring right at her. Concern was spreading like the plague over her features. 

_дерьмо._

"...Since I was a young boy. Twelve years old." He neglected to mention the gap between age sixteen up until now, hoping the routineness of his dreams would settle her enough into a more peaceful sleep. He should have been expecting more from her though; the furrow in her brow at his pause, her eyes scanning his face for the lie fragments. Whatever she saw made her abruptly unhappy. 

"Right, that's it." She rolled herself off the bed, throwing covers aside and placing herself on the left, outside the chasm that separated them. She stretched her arms briefly, making sure they were well-oiled, before starting to push against the bed frame. 

It was better than the nightmares, yet Illya still didn't like the confusion fluttering all over his gut. "What... what are you doing?"

There was only the scrape of wooden stubs against the floor grain, the thudding collision of her mattress against his, and her sigh as she threw herself down on her side of the now combined beds.

"Being a responsible fiance," she answered, extracting her covers from between the crease of their separate bed frames and fanning them over herself before allowing them to settle over her legs. Illya was still trying to comprehend how she could shove something so heavy so easily when she nestled herself next to him, quickly accustoming to his body even as it stiffened. 

"You... want to share a bed with me?" Tentative dreams were all scrambling over each other to come true first, and "waking up to Gaby's body" seemed to have won.  
She didn't relent in burying herself into him, haphazardly tossing her arms around him as her hair spilled a pool of coffee along her shoulders. Her feet hardly reached his knees, but her legs like to bend and twist themselves on top of his. "If you want to," she yawned into his chest. "We can help each other sleep."

Illya had a very particular idea of what the help would be, but of course, he had to remember that she never went to sleep sober. He was reluctant to close his own arms around her even as his nerves cried out for her. He could smell the perfume in her hair... and under that the lingering ambients of city smoke and chop shop labour. That was something he hoped no soap would ever wash away. "I... suspect you are not in full control of her actions right now-" 

A hybrid snort-groan rumbled somewhere near his heart, fading before being transferred to his lips. It was a lazy, mindless kiss that had her top lip pulling down his bottom one as she started to sink back down into her lull. The bourbon hadn't lost its edge, tingling in Illya's mouth as he stared down at her. Soft, yet with a sharpness to remember. He couldn't think of a more fitting first kiss where she was concerned.

"I always know what I'm doing," she slurred through a lopsided smile, still slightly puckering her lips and making him want to devour her. Luckily she soon lost the strength to hold her neck up, allowing it to fall back down on his chest and not bothering to unmuffle her plea against his shirt; "Now please shut up and go to sleep."

With his fingers wreathed through her hair and her warmth vaporising his fear, it was a miracle he didn't stay awake all night just to look at her.


End file.
